Lesson two of the journey of deconstruction touches on probably one of the hardest subjects and the most prone to philosophical confusion, the nature of the self. This isn’t a mere dive into Buddhism, as so many atheists end up doing, but a reflection on what it means to be a human being bound within biology and embedded in an evolutionary history. A great many religious ideas are easy to fall into and difficult to get out of precisely because they make a certain intuitive sense from how we feel ourselves to be in the world. Those intuitions are not only false, they contribute to a lot of needless hurt, and get in the way of a journey out of religious ideology.

This lesson contains a couple of articles to go over to hopefully flesh out even further the presentation. Ultimately, you don’t need to understand all the ins and outs of a philosophy of the flesh, but learning to distance yourself from your own thoughts and see yourself as more than one thing can be extraordinarily freeing and is a distinct contrast from the notion of sin that Christianity teaches.

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Lesson one begins our journey by recognizing that whatever god you believed in never existed in the first place. The deity didn’t suddenly disappear when you stopped believing or left your religious identity. Nor did the deity exist when you were a believer.

This seems like a simple point to make, but far too often, people start their process of moving on from religion with the idea that they’re starting from scratch, or starting over, and that everything they thought prior needs to be cleansed or washed away. Which sounds remarkably like the original conversion story so many were sold. Such a framework was nonsense then, and it’s ridiculous now.

Because a deity never existed, the person making all the decisions, deciding what was right and wrong, who to relate to, and how to show up in the daily decisions of every day of a life, was you. Just you. The authority figure(s) you connected to have changed, but not the fact that you were deciding to say yes to them. The incentives that supported different decision-making have changed, but not the fact that it’s you who gives those incentives meaning.

Take back the power that never left you.

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Whether sitting down for coffee, watching a form of media, or engaging in an online discussion, there’s no interaction where the potential of who I become next isn’t being molded. That’s the reality of a connected life, one where a myriad of different variables are all working with varying levels of emotional weight to shape the possibilities of who you and I will become, but also the lens through which we even see those possibilities. My perspective, and every one that each person has, of the world is both inevitable and a limitation. Inevitable because not having a perspective is utterly impossible, and a limitation because I can’t step outside of it. “Taking another’s perspective” has always been a fiction, as you can’t leave your own conscious experience. This is why mind-reading is also a fiction. You can’t leave yourself behind.

This is why experiential flexibility is so important, because there are innumerable other possible lenses for viewing my experiences. The greater number of data for my mind to draw from in shaping possibilities is a net gain for expanding the web of perception. In fact, think of that web being spun by a spider. If the threads only ever intersected at one point, not only is there a single point of failure, but because of that the whole structure is inherently unstable. The more lines that cross, the more nodes are created, and the greater stability that is built.

Every instance of miscommunication is an example pointing towards the inescapable conclusion that we neither can read another’s mind nor step outside of our own projection. Each person exists in our minds as a facsimile of who they are. Hence, humility is important because we never have all the information needed to complete a whole picture. As well, coming back to the web analogy, looking at someone through a single node or intersecting point is a recipe for bigotry, a lack of awareness concerning one’s own biases, and an unstable and limited picture of who that person is.

That inability to fully grasp the whole of another person is why dialogue and writing are important, if not necessary, for one’s own healthy development. Therapists often point to the power of journaling, but the practice is helpful largely because it makes concrete the limitations of our own thought. When we look back at what we’ve written, we should be able to do so with a head-shaking grin at the hubris that existed. The problems we thought were insurmountable eventually became commonplace. The things we found important ended up becoming less so. How we judged ourselves, hopefully, has become different.

This is what, in part, drives me to write and share within this digital world. I could stay within the confines of my immediate surroundings, interact only with work colleagues, friends, and only those who agree with me (extraordinarily limited such a group may be), and yes, each of these visions of our shared world would and are worth exploring, but the digital world has opened up a potential market of perspectives that borders on gluttony. When faced with such a bounty and working within the acknowledgement that vision is an active engagement, exploring different understandings of the world is like going from a flashlight to a lantern in a dark room.

As Jacob Bronowski notes:

"But we are in any case mistaken if we think of our picture of the world as a passive record. The picture is made by, it is made of, our activity, all the way from the logic of the brain to the use of the plow and the wheel. It is the implication and the expression, in symbolic form, of all our dealings with nature. The picture is not the look of the world but our way of looking at it: not how the world strikes us but how we construct it. (The Identity of Man)"

Be careful, though, as the enlightened room may not look entirely the way you initially thought it would be when you only had a flashlight. We are not passive recipients of the world we are embedded and embodied in, but co-creatively determining what we each identify as evidence for the opinions we believe are true, and therefore, the shape of things we believe we’re dealing with is equally so. Each public offering of writing is not simply a declaration of my own view; it's a request for and a seeking of continued engagement with the world. It’s a way of yelling into the cave and seeing what the echoes reveal.

If all the potential perspectives of the world were a pie, mine is an infinitesimally small slice, though no less important because of it. Certainly not to me, though of course I almost have to say that, don’t I? This isn't an equality of truth claims, but a recognition of the equality in our inevitable creation of perspective. It’s a major reason why the internet and social media are so enticing, as they’re a technological expansion of what we all feel as biological perspective makers: my view matters.

The drive for perspective making can be curtailed by insularity or expanded through challenging engagement. An honest, though likely uncomfortable, understanding of life, my place in it and as it, and my connection within it grows not in the echo-chamber of my own mind, but in every contact with another degree of perspective.

Again from Bronowski:

"Our experiences do not merely link us to the outside world; they are us, and they are the world for us; they make us part of the world. We get a false picture of the world if we regard it as a set of events that have their own absolute sequence and that we merely watch. (The Identity of Man)"

Whether it be explorations of politics, spirituality, psychology, or the social movements I find fascinating, all is done within a consideration of the active link I have with the shared humanity engaged in the same enterprise. It’s one of the central reasons I left the pursuit of theology and moved into psychology, because the former centered knowledge on a single perspective, and the latter has become an ongoing reminder that we should see the human striving behind every idea, opinion, and exclamation. Sometimes for good. Sometimes for ill. But always the striving remains.

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David

Welcome to module 4 of “Accepting Your Anger.” This is the last module in the class, but that doesn’t mean it’s the last lesson to learn. One of the purposes of how I teach is to base things on principles, so that you can go over them as often as you’d like, and that their application is specific to each person. If I simply told you what to do, not only would that be a level of arrogance I hope I don’t possess, but it wouldn’t be you living your life anymore. Most likely, you came here not wanting anger to take you over anymore, so why would I simply seek to take its place?

In looking at pursuing new behavior, we come to the last part of the path for gaining a better understanding of what emotions are and how they work. By identifying what matters to you, your Values, and exploring the Narratives that structure your life, Behavior becomes the means through which you support both Values and Narratives in a more directed, conscious, and deliberate way.

You don’t get away from consequences, but instead take ownership of what consequences you’re willing to live with.

Previous lessons:

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Welcome to my class on religious trauma, or, more clearly, working through trauma that has occurred within a religious context. I don’t mean to be a smartass with the language, as the difference really is important to me for several reasons, and those reasons separate what I teach in this class from many others who offer help on this topic.

Principles:

1. What makes trauma unique is the person, not the circumstance. This means that each person will construct and live their life differently than others, and because of this, what does or doesn’t get experienced as trauma will be different for each person.

2. Trauma is the result of a combination of context and perception. Context matters because not every difficulty is or should be considered traumatic, and perception matters because many people can be in the same context, like a religious background, and not have those experiences be personally considered as traumatic.

3. How a person reacts to a traumatic experience, what behavior they build to deal with it, are all attempts at one, keeping themselves safe, and two, reorienting themselves in a way that helps them make sense of the world they perceive.

4. Behavioral reactions linked to trauma are, therefore, not a sign of you being broken, damaged, or somehow divorced from your humanity. They are, in fact, signs that you still care about life, your place in it, and are working at figuring out how to move forward in the best way you know how.

5. The function of those behaviors is where healing can begin, precisely because they are attempts at supporting what you still care about, the values that reside at the heart of who you are. The behaviors have consequences you want to move on from, like disconnection from others due to isolation. This doesn’t mean you’ve ceased caring about others, only that there are real concerns about harm to yourself.

6. Your humanity hasn’t been lost, nor was it ever taken from you, no matter what dogma may have said otherwise. You are now, have always been, and will always be, an amazing creature wading through an uncertain unfolding future, seeking, and sometimes yelling for, a space to have meaning and purpose. I hope to join you.

Intro Religious Trauma Class Outline

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The above is a PDF of the slides for the introduction presentation. There are six lessons in total and they are accessible to all paid subscribers. If you have any questions, your paid subscription allows you to engage in posting questions, comments, and seeking support from the community of other subscribers, and I am active in that discussion.

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David French, veteran, lawyer, and opinion writer for various publications, including the New York Times and The Atlantic, wrote an opinion piece, “One Reason the Trump Fever Won’t Break,” in the New York Times on an aspect of Christian Nationalism and how a version of it is being used to shore up support for Donald Trump. I profoundly respect David, and I don’t say that because I’m about to rip into him; I simply love reading everything the man writes. This intellectual devotion and curiosity about his thinking gets me the side-eye from some, particularly in atheistic and humanist circles, since David is a Christian, and I, by all but the most liberal of definitions, am definitely not. Perhaps it’s sharing the same first name, which certainly carries a great history, Biblical and otherwise, but the love of ideas drives me in my reading, and French seems someone of a similar mind.

This is why, in reading his article and the commentary that many have when promoting it, I started shaking my head and thinking back on my own journey of religious faith. I grew up a Christian fundamentalist, believing in the inerrant authority of Biblical scripture, the centrality of faith as an epistemic path for Truth, and ethics derived from the person of Jesus as understood through the epistles and other writings. I was Protestant and Baptist, and later, when attending Grace Bible College (now Grace Christian University), I fell head-over-heels in love with the intellectual theology of mid-Acts dispensationalism and swam around in the muddy waters of the King-James-only framing concerning Bible translations. Those are topics for another time, and I mention them only for those who want to go down theological rabbit holes in their internet sleuthing.

Suffice to say, considering Christianity through the lens of intellectual rigor was how I largely considered my faith and, ironically, provided the prompting that led me to leave it all behind. Regardless, there was a tension that existed then, as it continues today in different forms, between the intellectual ponderings of believers and the fervency of considering faith as an epistemic straight arrow to the Truth bullseye. The emotion-first tool of faith has long been used as a post hoc tool for rationalization, just as there exists a number of secular variants, all of which boil down to how ideas serve as more than just declarations of how the world works, but often more so as directing social attention to the group the person belongs to.

The Psychological Roots of National Identity

That tension was a constant source of emotional turmoil (though admittedly, this may be overstating it) for me, feeling at once the pull to see my form of faith as superior while also feeling profoundly left out of larger conversations and social experiences. All of which brings me to this line from the article:

We mainly think of Christian nationalism as a theology or at least as a philosophy. In reality, the Christian nationalist movement that actually matters is rooted in emotion and ostensibly divine revelation, and it’s that emotional and spiritual movement that so stubbornly clings to Donald Trump. (David French)

“We” here is an interesting identifier because who is the “we” that is being referred to? Certainly not the majority of Christian believers who, as even French notes later, have little knowledge of the various theological systems and philosophies that undergird apocalyptic literature and prophetic scriptural analysis. My own anecdotal life experience supports this, as I was always at pains when talking with fellow believers who would much rather read the puerile writings of Max Lucado than get into discussions of Dispensational or Covenant theological systems, or ponder the epistemic concerns of presuppositionalism. Discussions of faith as a “relationship” were the lynchpin pulling at the foundations of any capacity for social bonding. Hence, the “we” that French belongs to immediately struck me even as I smiled and sighed in memory.

It is a proper grokking of the “relationship” language that is missed in the ongoing analysis opinion. Christian Nationalism is considered, particularly in its rhetoric, as “unhinged,” and the conclusion is to consider it as “not serious, but it’s very dangerous.”

No, it’s very serious, AND it’s very dangerous. Spending so much time in the social halls of intellectual exploration and not enough time with the masses is where such a conclusion misses the centrality of humanity and leads to French being shocked when confronted by a friend saying they agreed until the Holy Spirit told him Trump was anointed to lead. I get that the “seriousness” is more about noting nationalism’s lack of intellectual rigor, but describing it that way only buries the real seriousness of the matter.

From Idolatry to Inclusion: Reconciling Religious Values with Patriotism

There is a not-small segment of the population for whom democracy, the rule of law, and social norms are to be cast aside, and the usage of ends-justified violence is increasingly seen as a moral imperative. That is most definitely serious and resting on a, and here is where French’s personal theology is less conservative and sin-focused, simple acknowledgment of the U.S. populace’s increasing secularization, is failing again to miss how humanity is driven not by Truth but by “relationship.”

It will be a nationalism rooted more in emotion and mysticism than theology. (David French)

Yes, it will, but that’s what nationalism has always been about. The only thing that changes is the substance of the paper-thin intellectual veil being pulled over when the activists want to appear as adults even as they’re surrounded by the dumpster fire of their childish actions.

What French and others fail to grasp when looking at the social movement of their own faith tradition is how the roots of the problem are found in that same milieu. It is just as real, and certainly is felt by the masses as more real, as the intellectual version that ponders issues of “virtue in the public square” and the “balance of order and liberty.” Critical reflective reason will always be a road less traveled because it takes effort, and faith frankly takes none at all.

The reality is that Christianity, like any religion or ideology that rests on a dualism of mind/matter, intellect/emotion, and science/faith, will, when adherents are faced with perceived uncertainty in one’s social power and future resource accrual, side with the ego-enhancing power of rationalization in service of the tribe. The tribe serves as a bulwark against the present, in service of an imagined future that only they see and only they can bring about. As Hebrews 11:1 states, “Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.” The “hoped for” and “not seen” point to a future that hasn’t happened yet, where fantasies take root, and everything can be justified to achieve a desired end because the consequences are not felt there, only the effects of having done what is “right.”

This is where statements like those recently made by the bad orange man on what is supposedly the holiest day for Christians, that of Easter, filled with cursing and calls for war crimes, will not result in almost anyone questioning their previously given allegiance. Ethics is not a general set of principles for those who think of tribe first, but a means of declaring solidarity with one another. The worse the things that dear-leader says serve as a way to rub the chaff from the believing few. Who but the most committed would be willing to set aside any personal misgivings in the service of the supposed greater good? Every heinous thing defended serves as a way to declare their loyalty and become even more secure within the in-group.

For those like French, who see reflective humility as a good, blind allegiance will never sit right. Unfortunately, in a world seemingly continuing on a path of an uncertain future, blind allegiance never felt so good.

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This post was free to read for all. If you like what I’m doing with The Humanity’s Values Newsletter, and want to support my work, there are several ways you can do it.

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3. Upgrade to Paid: A paid subscription gets you:

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If you could do any of the above, I’d be very grateful. Readers like you help keep this newsletter going and growing.

Thanks!

David

Welcome to module 3 of “Accepting Your Anger” class. Here we look at relationships and how they are bedrock of how we live out our values and narratives. We simply do not exist as human beings without in some way being within various relationship forms or connections. The question is never whether you’re in a relationship, but what kind, with whom, and how much attention are you giving to it.

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Claiming things are “toxic” is quite often a way to avoid acknowledging the functional purpose of the underlying behavior or space. A workplace may be “toxic” even as many of the protocols in place are there to address demands upon it. A relationship may be “toxic” even as needs are continuing to be met. Let’s be clear, this isn’t a declaration to stay within a situation that is destructive or dangerous to you. What we’re after is to see how toxicity is a descriptive after the fact. It is quite possible to appreciate the outcome of a thing even as the means by which it is generated is deemed awful. People often complain about the so-called toxic workplaces like Amazon and other tech firms, or lament the use of child labor, and yet are quite happy for that two-day delivery service and gleefully go down the consumerist hole that is Temu. I’ve worked with many couples over the years in relationships where the term “toxic” gets thrown around, and yet they don’t want to give up the niceties afforded by excessive work hours, even as they yell about the emotional neglect by the spouse who is engaged in providing them.

Much the same is going on when it comes to anger, and it’s supposed “toxicity” or, in softer language, being labeled as a “negative” emotion. We treat it like a radioactive spill in the living room of the psyche, something to be contained, neutralized, or scrubbed away as quickly as possible. We label anger a “secondary emotion,” a “character flaw,” or a “symptom of trauma.” The truth is: There is no such thing as toxic anger, and emotions are not in themselves positive or negative.

When we label an emotion as “toxic,” we aren’t just describing a feeling; we are engaging in a narrative act. We are telling ourselves a story that says certain parts of our human experience are inherently broken. I often write and present about how narratives direct the behavioral expressions of our emotional reactions. If a certain story is that your anger is a “toxin,” your response will be an avoidance strategy of suppression, shame, and fear. Further, since feelings are not anything that you had any control over in their initial emergence, labeling one or another toxic or negative is to declare that some intrinsic part of yourself is such.

The challenge here is to look through the lenses of George A. Kelly’s Psychological Constructivist Theory (PCT) and Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT), and by doing so, you can find a far more empowering reality.

The Scientist in the Storm: George A. Kelly’s View

George A. Kelly famously suggested that every human being is, in their own way, a scientist. We are constantly making hypotheses in the form of psychological constructs, organizing our behavior as instruments of testing our understanding of the world we believe we exist in. We don’t just “have” personalities; we build “construct systems,” internal models of how the world works, so we can predict and navigate our lives through the behavior we believe is available for us to engage in. From this perspective, an emotion isn’t a “thing” that happens to you; it’s a signal about how well your “experiments” in living are going.

In Kelly’s Personal Construct Psychology (PCP), anger is defined as the effort to maintain conditions that we believe “ought to exist.” Think about that. Anger is the sound of your internal narrative system insisting on its own validity. For many, confirmation bias is something to avoid, but psychologically, the confirmation heuristic is a cognitive means of establishing continuity in one’s projections. When you get angry because someone lied to you, your “scientist” is observing data that contradicts your theory that “people I trust should be honest.” Your anger is a vigorous attempt to keep that theory intact. It is a protective, self-validating response.

The problem arises not from the anger itself, but from what Kelly called hostility. In the PCP framework, hostility is the “continued effort to extort validational evidence in favor of a type of social prediction which has already proved itself a failure.” Anger says, “This shouldn’t be happening!” Hostility says, “I will break you until you admit I’m right, even though the evidence shows I’m wrong.” In both reactions, we are responding to a perceived threat.

Threat was defined by Kelly as an awareness that a comprehensive change was imminent in your core constructs and, therefore, in your conception of yourself. In the broadest sense, threat can be induced when we perceive any plausible alternative to our core constructs. A comprehensive change in one’s core constructs is what occurs during an “identity crisis,” when one’s conception of oneself is shaken and needs to be re-construed. (David Lester, “Emotions in Personal Construct Theory”)

When we call anger “toxic,” we are usually looking at the hostile behaviors people use to avoid the pain of being wrong. But by labeling the feeling as the problem, we miss the data the feeling is providing. Anger is a signal that your construct system is under pressure, that how you desire the world to be is under threat, or has already been thwarted. Anger is, rather than something to avoid, an invitation to look at your “theories” about the world and decide if they need an update. It isn’t a poison; it’s a challenge to review how you see yourself and the world within which you interact.

The Trap of “Toxic” Labels: An ACT Perspective

This is where the principles and practice of Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT) provide a necessary bridge to healthier living. In ACT, we talk about cognitive fusion, getting so caught up in our thoughts and feelings that we think they are the literal truth. When you feel anger and experience it as an expression of who you are, your mind starts spinning a story: “I am an angry person,” or “This person is destroying me.” This is where emotions are eminently reasonable, and the dichotomy of reason and emotion is false (a point Kelly was often at pains to point out). The emotion is a recognition, a declaration, that the construct through which one interacts within the world is under threat, that they are under threat. Reason and emotion are simply two ways of expressing the symbiosis of personal experience.

However, the seamlessness with which our experience seems to be derived from us leads to that fusion and a reduction in nuanced appreciation for varied ways of looking at a situation. By adding the label “toxic” to that anger, you have created a second layer of fusion. Now you aren’t just angry; you are “toxically angry.” You’ve turned a temporary biological and psychological state into a permanent, shameful identity.

ACT teaches us that no internal experience is inherently “bad” or “good.” Instead, we ask: Is this workable? The question is about function. Does acting on this feeling move me toward the person I want to be and in the service of the values I hold dear?

When we stop fighting the anger—when we practice acceptance—we aren’t saying the anger is pleasant. We are simply acknowledging that it is there. By making room for the anger, by defusing from seeing it as an identity, we stop the seemingly inevitable process of behavior turning destructive. The toxicity isn’t in the anger; it’s in the struggle against the anger as we lose sight of what it’s pointing us to, and get hooked into making the world “right” through any means necessary. Consider how the more you try to push a beach ball under the water, the more violently it pops up and hits you in the face.

Anger as a Value-Pointer

If you look closely at your anger through the lens of constructs under threat, you’ll find that it is almost always pointing toward something you value. You don’t get angry about things you don’t care about.

If you are angry about an injustice at work, it’s because you value fairness. If you are angry at a partner’s neglect, it’s because you value connection and reliability. Anger is the “bodyguard” or “shield” of your values. When we pathologize it as “toxic,” we end up pathologizing the very values the anger is trying to protect.

In my class on Accepting Your Anger, I challenge people to stop asking “How do I stop being angry?” and start asking “What is this anger protecting?” When you identify the value beneath the intensity, you gain the self-empowerment to flexibly choose your response. You can move from reaction (hostility) to action (living your values).

Deconstructing the “Fragile” Narrative

One of the most damaging trends in modern therapy is the suggestion that we are fragile, that “negative” emotions like anger are trauma-induced glitches that require constant “regulation” or “healing.” This narrative makes us victims of our own biology.

Constructivism tells us we are not fragile; we are active. We are the authors of our own meanings. If you feel anger, it isn’t because you are “broken” or “dysregulated.” It’s because you are a meaning-making machine within a world that doesn’t always fit your blueprints.

By refusing the label of “toxic anger,” you reclaim your agency. You recognize that you have the capacity to hold intense, difficult feelings without being consumed by them. You learn that you can be angry and kind; angry and effective; angry and centered in your values.

The Way Forward

So, how do we live with an emotion that the world insists is dangerous?

1. Notice the Narrative: The next time anger rises, notice the labels your mind wants to attach to it. Is it calling the anger “toxic”? Is it telling you that you’re “losing control”? Recognize these as stories, not facts.

2. Validate the Construct: Ask yourself: What “ought to be” happening right now that isn’t? What theory about the world is being challenged? (e.g., “I expected to be respected, and I’m not.”)

3. Check for Hostility: Are you trying to “extort evidence” to prove you’re right, even if the situation has changed? Are you trying to force reality to fit your old construct? This is where the damage happens.

4. Pivot to Values: If this anger is a bodyguard, what is it guarding? Fairness? Safety? Excellence? Once you find the value, ask: “What is the most workable way to honor this value right now?”

Anger is part of the “Humanity” in Humanity’s Values. It is a fierce, vital, and necessary part of the human experience. It is the fuel for change, the signal of injustice, and the guardian of our boundaries. It isn’t a poison, and it isn’t a disease.

It’s time we stopped trying to “cure” our anger and started learning to listen to it. You aren’t toxic. You’re simply human, and your anger is proof that you still believe you have something worth fighting for. Reach out and embrace the value.

This is module 2 of the “Accepting Your Anger” class. Here we look at that overly popular term “narrative.” Here, narratives are not ways of determining truth so much as frameworks that give us our lived experiences. They are the structure through which we identify what values are defined us and how we determine what they look like in practice.

If you’ve ever wondered why some things upset you more than others and/or why you get angry at certain times and not at others, the boundaries provided by your stories/narratives are the answer. If you’ve wondered why some people, including yourself, can be “hypocrites,” where caring about one thing seems to mean not caring about another, narratives are what allows this to happen.

We are not so much finding truths in our lives, as starting from what we believe and seeking consistency in applying those beliefs. If that means we ignore some things, or emphasize other things, then so be it.

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This is module 1 of “Accepting Your Anger,” focusing on the nature of emotional triggers, seeing them through a behavioral and ACT lens. Rather than viewing triggers as something that happens to you, we can see them as being expressions of concern and the identification of value, or what matters to you.

Anger isn’t a problem. It is not anything to be ashamed of. Rather, anger is acknowledgment that you still care about the things that matter to you, and that is a very good thing.

What you do with that anger, whether you serve it, or the value(s) that it points you to, that’s where the work begins.

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“It’s really difficult to be a therapist these days” is the message in social media posts of self-declared socially-minded mental health workers. This pervasive message has, of course, a reciprocal effect on the nature of what therapy ends up being in practice, where the assumptions brought in by mental health workers and the questions posed, iteratively teach clients and patients the “proper” lens through which they should assess their lives. As behavioral research has repeatedly shown, what you attend to is what you reinforce in your life. This is not incidental: I find it frustrating when therapists and parents declare that a client or child is “spontaneously” and by their own will expressing interest in a particular thing or focusing on a particular behavior. Each will forget the questions they asked about and the attention they gave to those specific interests and behaviors.

This focus on attention is not some reiteration of the magical thinking of “The Secret,” that early 2000’s book which elevated thought to a realm of causal power upon the universe. Rather, this is an appreciation for how attention, likely one of the most powerful, if not central, of the cognitive mechanisms in our lives, directs the use of our limited resources, namely time, but also by extension finances and social capital.

What you pay attention to, what you spend your limited cognitive space contemplating, has an innate opportunity cost. This is true of all behavior, but where it’s at least nominally easy to identify how engaging in a particular bodily activity means you can’t then do another one at the same time, people tend not to view mental activity in the same way. Thing is, mental activity is still, well, activity. You can’t have more than one conscious thought at the same time. And insofar as consciousness has a role in our lives, consider it as a second step, establishing the direction of your immediate life. The first step is not anything you have much direct control over, that of your unconscious or pre-conscious processes. There isn’t much to it in providing a definitive answer to what you’re going to do next with your behavior; it’s simply too fluid to establish a concrete direction. Once the internal activity manifests in consciousness, there are still a lot of directions you can go, but they’ve become a lot fewer.

Unfortunately, because consciousness is so central to our lives, and frankly, the case could be made that it really is the only thing we ever actually do experience, we take it for granted even as we also give it entirely too much power. We take it for granted by not appreciating the opportunity cost that each thought has, and, especially, what the level of cost is when we preoccupy ourselves with particular thoughts. There were several ways to express that last sentence, but I like the word “preoccupy” because that is what we are often blindly doing with our attention, front-loading the occupation of our mind, pre-selecting how we are going to spend our time, and therefore cutting ourselves off from the myriad of other possibilities that exist.

This is where we give our thoughts entirely too much power. Just because our thoughts are occupied by something and qualify as a behavior, it does not mean doing so is an action possessed of automatic or inevitable moral inertia. In other words, your thoughts are not nearly as important or powerful as their presence may trick you into believing. Consider that each and every day, there are thousands, if not millions, of thoughts that you have zero recollection of. Further, a sizeable majority of those thoughts contribute almost nothing to the physical expression of your life. There are thoughts you can have right now, just like many others you have every day, that not only do not connect to an expressive behavior, but are even the opposite. One of the favorite personal experiments in Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT) to do is to have the thought, and even express it out loud, that “I am not raising my arm” even as you do in fact raise your arm.

Yet, despite this lived experience highlighting the limitation and powerlessness of our thinking, we still seem determined to believe that some thoughts are somehow special or unique from any others. Spoiler: they are not. Thoughts are always just thoughts, and nothing makes one or another more intrinsically meaningful than any other. In fact, and here’s the icing on the cake of recognizing that thoughts aren’t important merely by their existence, is how the significance of any of them is determined far more by the environmental context within which they arise.

Experiment with me. How often do you think about food and not reach for a sample? Given the biological need we all have for calories, and how often advertisements are centered on food, it’s a fair guess that the percentage of times you have a thought about food and do not engage in eating is extraordinarily small. You can do this with several things, from seemingly random thoughts of violence, cursing, and imaginings of violating social norms, of which you do not express outwardly, to the sadder example of the many times you think about how much you love the people in your life and consider acting on it, but don’t. The threshold for when a thought leads to an action is not based on the thought itself, but the context, including the immediacy of access where it concerns food, and the perceived reception of our actions by those we care about. Here again, your thoughts are not the linchpin to release an action, but the ride-along for environmental opportunity.

However, because we often ignore context and place the locus of control upon our thoughts, this leads to a situation ripe for manipulation. Advertisers, department store organizers, theme park developers, and entertainment streamers all love the fact that we hubristically believe our thoughts to be under our immediate and total control, and by extension, our actions, to be a matter of deliberate choice. It frees them up to manipulate us, often utilizing the same technique, albeit expressed in different ways: the intense fluctuation of high-intensity emotional experiences, particularly from aversive to affirmative, or anger to joy.

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Nowhere is this more prevalent than in news coverage of politics and related social issues, with the result being the exact opposite of good for you. As Arthur Brooks notes in a recent article, “Face It, You’re Addicted to Politics:”

This manipulation is effective but horrible for your mental health—especially if it becomes a semi-permanent feature of your life, because emotional instability (not negative emotion per se) drives neuroticism. Psychologists have shown in multiple studies that variability in mood predicts clinical depression even better than consistent emotional negativity. One hypothesis to explain this finding is that frequent ups and downs, especially for people prone to depression, dysregulate the amygdala, a crucial part of your brain’s limbic system that regulates emotional processing, in a way that biases a person to overreact to negative stimuli and underreact to positive ones. (Arthur Brooks)

This brings us back to the beginning of this article, where the therapist laments having to do their job, forgetting that what they bring to their job is at least as important, if not more so, given the power dynamics at play in the “professional” relationship, than what the client does. Therapists are not passive recipients of their clients’ lives, but cocreators of the therapeutic space. What they attend to contributes to, in part, what the client will believe is important to focus on. Encouraging themselves in the constant inculcation of political news and framing every individual life as somehow being directly affected by broader national issues supports a mentality of thought-centric living. When therapists should encourage a healthier practice of holding thoughts lightly, they instead reinforce the erroneous notion that thinking is the most crucial activity we engage in daily, and thoughts are somehow sacred, particularly when they pertain to socially significant concerns.

This thought-centric living is enlarged through the emotional heroin that is social media, where not only is every thought encouraged to be expressed, no matter how ill-informed or ridiculous, but ‘likes’ and ‘shares’ and comments, often equally if not more ill-informed and ridiculous, are seen as engagement. While I do not subscribe to the notion that “Twitter (or insert other social media platform) is not real life,” the equivocation of engagement, where throwing thoughts into a digital landscape is often seen as similar in effect to volunteering, community involvement, and actual voting, is not only destructive to democracy, it reinforces the false notion that thoughts themselves are somehow affecting the world.

Such magical thinking fuels the rapid pace at which people doomscroll and consume increasingly substantial amounts of political news and commentary. Again from Brooks’s article:

In a 2023 survey of American adults, about a third said they follow national politics “very closely.” Meanwhile, 62 percent of Americans consume news about politics and government “often” or “extremely often,” which is 30 percentage points above the next highest area of news interest.

Read that last part again: “30 percentage points above the next highest are of news interest.” Let’s come back to opportunity cost and the limitation of our resources, and consider now how people are ignoring sizeable sections of their lives. If such consumption was leading to more behavioral engagement, like voting, and being more informed about local and state government, there could be a case made for such an outsized percentage. However, as polling done by Johns Hopkins indicates:

“Almost half of those surveyed couldn't say what their state spent the most on; even fewer knew which state issues were most controversial. Fewer than 20 percent could name their state legislators. A third couldn't name their governor.”

And where it concerns voting, the only direct influence people have in a representative democracy, according to Pew Research:

The 66% turnout rate in 2020 was the highest since 1908, and 2024’s rate of 64% was the second highest, tied with 1960.

Little wonder people can’t name their governor or who represents them in Congress, as so few people are actually having to fill in the bubbles next to those names.

If news consumption isn’t leading to greater behavioral involvement or in being informed about the actual government, then what is it doing?

Reading that tenth article on the war in Iran isn’t going to change anything in the world. Watching video after video of ICE agents being belligerent is not going to make them stop. And no, “being informed” is not what’s actually going on, since if that were the case, such would have been addressed at the first, if not at least by the second video or article, given how so many of them are just repeating the same talking points and behavior. “Being informed” is the modern equivalent of clapping to give a fairy its wings.

A reminder that opportunity costs are an inevitable calculation we make through our behavior. How much are you missing in your life because of constantly feeding the outrage machine?

Put down the phone. Disengage from social media (and yes, I recognize the irony of writing this on Substack). Bring your attention to your loved ones and express how much they mean to you. Volunteer with your charitable organizations. Organize community activities. Contribute to your local stores and artisans.

The problems of the world are not going to go away because of your rage and digital posts. By being more engaged in actual living, rather than mental incantations, you’ll not only find yourself living a better life, but you’ll also find yourself more capable when the chips are down to do what is necessary to support the change you want to see.

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David

This is an introduction to the Accepting Your Anger class that I’ve developed. Serving as an introduction to the class, this presentation covers an outline, some basic principles that will be used, and what to look forward to.

This class, among others, and ongoing presentations, will be exclusively for paying subscribers. All other material will continue to be freely available. As well, the broader community comments and discussion will also be included for paying subscribers to encourage sharing resources and discussion about the material. I will certainly be popping in to contribute to the discussion.

I hope you enjoy the class, and each week for four weeks will be a new module/presentation for this class, followed by other topics.

In this course, you’ll connect with your anger in a way that is more focused on acceptance than management.

I’ll help you become more aware of why you get angry, appreciate the nature of anger and its use in our lives, and develop skills to create a greater gap between feeling and action so you can express yourself in better, less destructive ways.

You’ll learn to be a better you, not only for yourself but for those you care about.

In the recent article “The Modern World Hasn’t Left Our Evolutionary Past Behind,” I explored the idea that, rather than our species, and therefore individual people, being in some way outside or at odds with the modern technological world, we are still very much capable of navigating the world we’re in. As a species we have not supplanted evolution for the supposed glories of our rational minds, but remain deeply embedded in the mechanisms of our biological impulses that drive our behavior. Our stories about ourselves may be more complicated than the images on the walls of caves, but the process of making up those stories is still inviolably connected to the natural biological reality in which we are embodied and embedded.

This notion of being somehow at odds with our environment is, I contend, very much connected to what is referred to as “therapy culture,” the notion that we are intrinsically fragile creatures in need of professional care in the face of a world that is against our well-being. Quite often these days, at least in certain social circles, this takes the form of declarations against capitalism, where every bad version of human behavior is laid at the feet of this seeming fourth force of physics in the universe that serves as a similarly destructive construct for secular liberals as “sin” does for fundamentalist Christians. Poking at these criticisms isn’t the point here (for an excellent attempt, check out this article), only using it as an example of how often people look at the modern world and find themselves seemingly cut-off or set-aside from it.

As Erich Fromm noted in “Escape from Freedom,”:

“The physiologically conditioned needs are not the only imperative part of man’s nature. There is another part just as compelling, one which is not rooted in bodily processes but in the very essence of the human mode and practice of life: the need to be related to the world outside oneself, the need to avoid aloneness. To feel completely alone and isolated leads to mental disintegration just as physical starvation leads to death.” Fromm, Erich. Escape from Freedom (p. 17).

The first part echoes much of what people say now, believing themselves cut off from the world through technological abdication of their needs. Yet, Fromm immediately notes the solution that still remains for all of us, the need to be related to the world outside oneself, a need and biological drive that has not left us.

Instead of looking at the world as somehow contrary to us, I offered a set of principles of adaptation to reframe our situation.

Principles of Evolutionary Adaptation

1. Our evolution in the Environment of Evolutionary Adaptiveness (EEA) equipped us not only with specific mechanisms but also with the flexibility to address novel situations.

2. Behavior serves many purposes, some proximal and others long-term, with variable consequences.

3. Behavior is fundamentally about addressing functional concerns in specific contexts, which are constantly changing.

4. Technological development emphasizes certain behavioral patterns only by modifying environmental boundaries, not by undermining alternatives.

Foundational to these principles is how flexibility, rather than simply a behavioral descriptive, is a psychological imperative built in by our evolutionary past. This is why, within the modality of Acceptance and Commitment Therapy, flexibility is at the center of the six processes that make up the practice.

As with ACT, so then the general question of therapy in general, where the central issue to be concerned with is that of flexibility or, to use an older term, resilience. While resilience can be promoted badly, it’s really not at all a matter of yelling “stop it!”, however funny Bob Newhart makes it sound.

Flexibility reminds us of possibility, of options, of taking different perspectives and recognizing that while habits can help save time, the road less traveled can sometimes provide greater solutions. A reminder of principle 3 from above, where behavior exists to address functional concerns within changing contexts. Too often we get stuck in saying we’re seeking clarity, but truly we’re just looking for confirmation. This is where I often hear declarations from clients of wanting someone else to “understand,” when really they just want agreement. The changing context involves where each person is coming from, including the variations in what values they find important, and how they seek to support them through behavior.

Holding thoughts lightly, an ACT principle, works quite well here, where the active appreciation for changing circumstances keeps us from being blindsided by consequences we never believed possible. The felt sense of being overwhelmed by life is quite often an issue of feeling that behavioral involvement is always a matter of necessity, rather than choice. Parents are an easy example here, with the “need” involving having their children being a part of every activity and providing them every new tech toy and fancy piece of apparel, despite the consequence of a destructive reduction to time and finances.

It’s as if by calling something a “need” people believe that the universe should remove us from the law of cause and effect. Thankfully, reality is not that accommodating.

A focus on flexibility is two-fold: the pursuit of what is possible, and a recognition of one’s limits. In a word: humility. Humility is a character trait that admits the universe is not at our beck and call, and how our capacity to declare something a need or a right doesn’t make them such. Humility reminds us that we live in a reality of interconnected relationships, competing desires, and limited resources, where our expectations are a declaration of our desired outcomes, but are not dictates for people to follow.

Much of mental health therapy, and living a mentally healthy life in general, is found in providing a space to hold back from making decisions that will only exacerbate the very problems that brought the person in for help in the first place. By bringing attention to flexibility, and exploring humility, we allow the inexorable march of time to remind us that just because a feeling is valid, doesn’t make it correct, and just because we think we’re right, doesn’t mean there isn’t a great deal more to learn.

I love the clash of ideas. There’s something profoundly wholesome about polite, not to be confused with uncritical, exchanges of perspective and opinion in the pursuit of providing frameworks to illuminate experience in new and, hopefully, better ways. In a recent article I wrote on the nature of beliefs, I referenced the writing of Dan Williams and David Pinsof.

Dan Williams was responding to David Pinsof, and, as is the case with lively intellectuals, Pinsof responded with a note to hopefully clarify a few points.

Conspicuous Cognition

We Are Confused, Maladapted Apes Who Need Enlightenment

In a characteristically insightful and entertaining essay, David Pinsof argues that intellectuals greatly overestimate how many of the world’s problems stem from popular misunderstandings. In reality, Pinsof argues, people are highly rational and well-informed about their interests. This is what we should expect on evolutionary grounds. “Show me an anim…

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3 months ago · 310 likes · 53 comments · Dan Williams

David Pinsof comment:

1) Mismatch is increasingly being recognized by evolutionary psychologists to be overrated as an explanatory approach—I’ve talked about it with a few guests on Evolutionary Psychology (the Podcast), in particular with Daniel Nettle and Josh Tybur, and my sense is that the idea is losing steam in the field. The story about humans gorging on junk food is too simple: it has been complicated by research by Daniel Nettle and colleagues (and a moment’s reflection will make you realize that we obviously have mechanisms for curbing overconsumption of food and craving nutrients that we lack). The story on obesity may have to do with adaptively storing energy in the form of fat when we receive cues of future food insecurity, as Nettle has argued (and he has some data on this), but plenty of questions remain. The story about ancestral, small-scale, egalitarian groups has also been challenged by Manvir Singh, who has argued that ancestral hunter-gatherer groups were considerably more variable in structure than is commonly assumed, with some societies being very large and very unequal. Perhaps the main purpose of our big brains is to figure out how to achieve our adaptive goals in novel contexts, so even if conditions are novel right now, our brains will very often be up to the task of figuring things out. In any case, even if mismatches were a big issue, it is unclear whether intellectuals would be much better at getting over them than the masses. After all, intellectuals have their own highbrow versions of junk food and misinformation.

References

Daniel Nettle on “sweet nothings”

Manvir Singh on variability in early hunter-gatherer societies

This notion of a “mismatch” is so extraordinarily common that, personally, I had a hard time even acknowledging that it was a perspective rather than a necessary and inevitable truth. Reflecting on this, I realized that I’d fallen into a similar trap to that of viewing one’s own difficulties as unique, and/or one’s generational struggles as uniquely difficult. I’ve used some version of the “mismatch” idea often in my own life and in my professional work. However, I like to assuage my ego by noting that I softened the notion by focusing attention on the immediate functional behavioral consequences of individual environment and behavioral outcomes, rather than always making a larger assertion about evolution.

The examples provided by Pinsoff, concerning sugar and the simple view of our hunter-gatherer ancestry, are common, though others exist, and the general notion that there’s a mismatch between our species and the modern world pervades a lot of the analysis that occurs these days about the nature of phones in school, the role misinformation plays in people’s development of opinion and voting behavior, and the supposed rise in mental health concerns. With that in mind, particularly the latter example, I think there’s a case to be made that the assumed mismatch notion helps support what some have referred to as “therapy culture,” and the fragility that it assumes and perpetuates. Before we dive in, let’s consider an outline of the mismatch perspective:

Outline of a Mismatch

1. We evolved in a particular environment of evolutionary adaptiveness (EEA) that created specific mechanisms to address it.

2. Behavior that leads to negative outcomes indicates a lack of fit within a particular environment

3. There are observable, seemingly maladaptive behaviors that have led to an increase in negative mental and physical health outcomes.

4. These destructive outcomes stem from technology and human culture broadly creating an environment so quantifiably different from the EEA that we are no longer capable of dealing with it in healthy ways.

What immediately strikes me about this outline is how it points to the general conclusion people have about their own lack of flexibility in the face of adversity. There’s a certain sneering contempt that people who declare themselves pro-science have for those who question or don’t agree with the theory of evolution, where ‘survival of the fittest’ gets thrown back on those who, admittedly quite wrongly, portray evolution as simply a ‘strong survive’ story. Yes, ‘fittest’ is a better framing, but few seem to understand what that means. ‘Adaptable’ may sometimes be thrown around, and that is certainly closer, but ‘flexible’ also captures the idea and may be more helpful. It’s, perhaps, easy to think of ‘adaptation’ as a set of mechanistic set points, like a Transformers toy going from one state to another. ‘Flexible’ allows for focus to be brought to processes and, therefore, hopefully, we don’t get stuck on a singular relationship being made. My favorite example of this is using a butter-knife to turn a flat-head screw, which anyone over a certain age has likely done. The butter-knife hasn’t adapted to the new environment, but there’s a process of evaluation that allows it to be used in different and flexible ways.

With the above in mind, let’s consider an assumption that each of the points about ‘mismatch’ carries.

Assumptions

1. The adaptive mechanisms are proprietary to the EEA, as if it holds a biological form of digital rights management (DRM).

2. Behavior can only be judged as beneficial or maladaptive within a single environmental context.

3. Judgements about outcomes allow us to ignore the potential adaptive strategies that supported the behavior.

4. Our technology is fundamentally different, not just in type but kind, such that what exists now is incomparable in context to what came before.

I want to add a point for clarity here, for those who may be, rightly, coming up with examples of single-point-failures in the animal kingdom. Yes, we exist in a natural universe, and while the usage of the term ‘mechanism’ can induce a tendency towards simplistic reductionism, biology is still certainly mechanistic in the sense of having parts that work together. As such, there are undoubtedly examples that exist in the broad story of evolution where a single biological response resulted in failure to reproduce, and therefore can be considered maladaptive in a single environment. Home sapiens is not like that, certainly not after having added in the sapiens part. Our surplus of neurons, an amusing way to highlight cognition as an evaluative predictive processing device, has catapulted us to the head of the animal pack, surpassing all forms of humanity before us. Our species’ adaptations have centered on the growth of imagination and the ability to conceptualize possible future failures. We don’t need to wait for failures to actually occur in experience; we can imagine them and plan accordingly.

Therapy Culture and Fragility

The idea that we’re inherently fragile supports the adversity point. If we’re inherently fragile creatures, then it becomes easy to view all difficulties through a lens that calls for the removal of adversity as a moral good. Struggle is no longer an inherent part of being human and therefore an inevitable part of the natural world, but an affront to the seeming noble aspiration that nobody should ever feel bad. The repercussions of this are several and documented by many others smarter than me. As Jonathan Haidt notes:

The idea that adversity is a sign of something wrong is most clearly seen in policy changes leading to grade inflation, the removal of testing, and, generally, telling kids and adults that the central concern in their lives is to pay attention to their feelings as guides to the personal truths of their lived experience. The idea is also found in issues related to calls for equity, where any differential in outcome between two groups must be and only can be understood as due to a systemic problem.

This is the connection between fragility and “therapy culture.” Initially brought up by Frank Furedi in his book “Therapy Culture” in 2003, Richard Hanania summarizes it nicely:

There’s a lot here that will be covered in later articles, though it’s already been a particular annoyance of mine in my profession for a while now, and one I’ve touched on previously.

In the face of our seeming inherent fragility and our lives, to be lived, requiring us to embark on journeys of chaos and turmoil, whatever are we to do? Perhaps, just maybe, instead of seeing ourselves as fragile and in constant need of saving, we can learn to be comfortable in the uncomfortable. Perhaps we can see the aspirations of our conscious selves not as indications that something in the world has gone wrong, but as goads to support our values through critically reflective behavior. Just maybe, instead of seeing our capacity for informational gluttony as an imperative to doomscroll ourselves into deliberate depression, we can pause to connect with those closest to us and support the immediate communities we’re a part of. We can, perhaps, remind ourselves that anger is not an energetic declaration to the universe, where the more we have, the more likely something will magically happen.

With those maybes, here are four counterprinciples to the mismatch framework that can be helpful:

Principles of Evolutionary Adaptation

1. Our evolution in the EEA equipped us not only with specific mechanisms but also with the flexibility to address novel situations.

2. Behavior serves many purposes, some proximal and others long-term, with variable consequences.

3. Behavior is fundamentally about addressing functional concerns in specific contexts, which are constantly changing.

4. Technological development emphasizes certain behavioral patterns only by modifying environmental boundaries, not by undermining alternatives.

There’s a fascinating idea put forward by Andy Clark and David Chalmers called “the extended mind.” This is the notion that our mind, rather than being seen as wholly encased or bound within the body only, can instead be expanded to include the technological tools and relationships that make up our world. This is not some woo-woo notion of mental powers, but an appreciation for how integrated we are as part of nature, not apart from it. Annie Murphy Paul has a great article on this:

We as a species have been overcoming adversity for as long as we figured out fire to ward off the cold and dark, to stealing the majesty of flight from the birds by building airplanes, and providing new tools to access the ubiquity of knowledge that is the internet and real-time translation devices to bridge communication gaps, tools that used to be the perogative only of gods. We are not so much finding ourselves a mismatch with nature as fallen victim to our hubris in thinking we are so unique and clever to have ever left it.

Welcome!

Explore the nature of belief, how it influences decision-making and identity, and the journey from skepticism to understanding with insights and personal stories. Join us for a deep and nuanced conversation exploring human beliefs, biases, conspiracy theories, and the importance of humility and continuous learning. Our guests share personal stories, insights on societal polarization, and reflections on how to live authentically in a complex world.

Intros:

Steve Ghikadis…

is a Humanist Officiant, who conducts secular marriages, memorials, and many more meaningful life affirming celebrations.

He holds a Bachelor of Arts in History and a Bachelor of Education in primary, junior and intermediate grades.

Raised as a freethinker, Steve has been married to a Christian for over a decade. He and his wife, Cindy, believe in the importance of bridging the gap between believers and non-believers.

Their two young children are being raised in an interfaith household and are free to choose their own path.

He serves as an Ambassador for Humanist Canada, Recovering from Religion, and Sunday Assembly.

In 2024, Steve was awarded the King Charles III Coronation Medal for significant contributions to his community in Windsor/Essex, Ontario, Canada.

Coleman Watts…

is the host of “Think This Through,” a YouTube channel dedicated to debunking the ridiculous, poking at the absurd, and having fun doing it.

In what is fast becoming one of my favorite essays, David Pinsof delightfully skewers the notion that the central problem with today’s politics is that people are misinformed. That, if only they could be encouraged, incentivized, and/or cajoled into being rational creatures, they’d all get together in a socialist utopia where the very nature of human beings and the evolutionary history that drove our biological development would suddenly disappear.

You see, it’s not that we’re hierarchical, coalitional, self-deceiving primates—forged in the crucibles of Darwinian natural selection—don’t be so cynical! No, the problem is that other people are biased, ignorant, gullible, weak-willed, and misinformed. They don’t know what’s best for them. They need us to nudge them, raise their consciousness, purge them of misinformation, and teach them who their political enemies are—you know, the people who happen to be our closest rivals in the social hierarchy.

Everything Is Bullshit

A Big Misunderstanding

I spend a lot of time with intellectuals—writers, thinkers, social scientists, etc. If I had to sum up their worldview in one sentence, I could hardly do better than this one…

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4 months ago · 227 likes · 96 comments · David Pinsof

Frankly, I encounter this kind of self-serving Pollyanna thinking quite often in therapy, not just in clients, but amazingly from other mental health therapists who should know better. At least, they’d know better if they spent more time with philosophy and biology texts to question their assumptions about the world. Alas, the draw of being social change agents righteously ushering in a religious revival in the name of post-modernism and the elevation of subjectivism masquerading as “lived experience,” is simply too strong. That this involves weekly, if not more often, meetings to the tune of hundreds if not thousands of dollars (if you’re into psychodynamic psychotherapy) each month, only proves that for all the lamenting about being in the latest iteration of “late stage capitalism,” market forces are well and truly alive and well.

I call it self-serving because every time someone uses the term “logic” or “reason” to critically appraise someone’s lack of this particular quality, it is inevitable that you could substitute “agreement” and nothing would change. In other words, “logic” and “reason” have become the secular equivalent of “true belief” in the religious world. And, just like there’s no such thing as a “true” believer (as in someone who is somehow “pure” in their adherence), only those who espouse allegiance to a group ideological structure, there is also no such thing as a purely logical or rational human being, at least certainly not in the way that is being promoted.

What, exactly, is this “logic” and “reason” that is so often touted by those who think “science is true whether you believe it or not”, amusingly conflating a means of evaluating claims with particular claims themselves? “Reason” here is supposedly that which is opposite of, or at odds with, or divorced from, emotions/feelings. It’s often used by men upset at their spouses, or by men, again, who don’t see why other people don’t agree with them on a topic they’re woefully ignorant of. This isn’t meant to say that women don’t have a similar tendency to think they know more than actually do and prognosticate; such is a seemingly indelible human tendency (one that I’m sure I lapse into at times). The difference is that rhetoric concerning “logic” and “reason” isn’t often used, instead relying on personal or “lived” experience as a just-so epistemic source.

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No There Are Not Systems in Your Brain

Unfortunately for everyone who thinks they’ve hit upon a pure source for opinions, there are not, in fact, two different systems making claims, but one system with two elements. First comes emotion, understood as the biological arousal system taking note of something important (known also as ‘salience’), followed by a slower, at least in comparison, appraisal that is concerned with consistent alignment with previous experience, and then we have the conscious expression of this broad process in the form of mental verbiage.

Often therapists or psych professionals who really should know better, start talking "System 1" and "System 2" in the sense of the image below as two separate things; they are not actually understanding Kahneman at all, but are simply perpetuating the non-biological nonsense of emotion being distinct from reason.

It's an unfortunate use of the term "system" when a better framework would be one system, appraisal, that has two general processes within the whole. Much of your "reason" is very much unconscious, since you don't ever choose the thoughts you have, and to call one "slow" is only in comparison to "automatic." What takes effort is not reason, but the social process of criticism and evaluation using various tools.

“System 1 and System 2 are so central to the story I tell in this book that I must make it absolutely clear that they are fictitious characters. Systems 1 and 2 are not systems in the standard sense of entities with interacting aspects or parts. And there is no one part of the brain that either of the systems would call home.” (Kahneman, Daniel. Thinking, Fast and Slow (p. 29).)

So when you engage in thinking, you are emoting just as much as anyone else. You can’t remove the emotional appraisal from your biology. In fact, for fun, consider this question: who chose what to think about? Follow it with: Did you choose from a myriad of potential issues to consider, or did the initial thought come up, and you continued the story? Here’s another question to really get you to doubt being the master of your cognitive domain: To what degree did the environment contribute to what you considered important to think about? And, could I have thought anything I wanted?

The quick answers to those questions are: not you, the latter, everything, and no.

So just what then are our thoughts and the beliefs we conflate with them, really about?

Behavioral Guides

Let’s view cognition through the analogy of baking cookies, with the need for specific ingredients for a particular outcome. For our first ingredient, consider the basic essential biological need of all organisms to direct limited resources towards goals. Now, add being in social environments, whereby those limited resources are organized, provided meaning or importance, and everyone in those environments is jostling for those same limited resources. Lastly, we’re creatures that, like all organisms, take the path of least resistance. As Kahneman puts it:

“A general “law of least effort” applies to cognitive as well as physical exertion. The law asserts that if there are several ways of achieving the same goal, people will eventually gravitate to the least demanding course of action. In the economy of action, effort is a cost, and the acquisition of skill is driven by the balance of benefits and costs. Laziness is built deep into our nature.” (Kahneman, Daniel. Thinking, Fast and Slow (p. 35). (Function). Kindle Edition.)

When we want something, there is a context supporting why we want it, and providing the means to get it, albeit to varying degrees of social support or shaming. Beliefs, at the conscious level, here, are shorthand declarations (supported by an enormous amount of unconscious processing) about how that context works and provide the rationalization for why we then behave or engage the way we do.

This is where Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT) often shines, being as it is a tool for critical thinking, even as it unfortunately also tends to perpetuate false notions of how reason works. This is also where those lists of so-called “cognitive biases” raise their scary faces, reminding us of all the errors we can make in our opinions. These biases are better understood as heuristics, as self-serving shortcuts when faced with the enormity of the data we’re embedded in as biological creatures. Our brains are far less concerned with grand notions of truth than with reducing errors in judgment to maintain the felt consistency that results from seeing how, when behavior A happens, effect B is achieved. If that means denying data points, conflating others, or making ones up, that’s what it will do.

For all of us faced with the potential shame of being wrong and possessing inherently lazy brains, errors in judgment are inevitable. So what is one to do to curtail access to data that undermines our judgments, and help with that initial biological need we all have to manage limited resources?

Welcome to the second purpose beliefs have: group signaling.

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Group Alignment

Ever wonder why a person can say they believe something and yet their behavior doesn’t seem to align with it? Conversations with family about political matters are often an easy source for seeing this, though other sources of examples abound. If you genuinely believe that democratic leadership is behind a global cabal of satanic pedophilic cannibals, as the QAnon adherents do, then it makes sense to fall for things like “pizzagate” and shoot up a restaurant in search of abducted children. Here’s the thing, though, since that incident only involved a couple of people, and there are thousands of QAnon devotees, so why are they all not assaulting Democrat leaders and Hollywood elites? I dare say that a fair number of them still lined up at a movie theater for the latest blockbuster or curled up on a couch for an evening with their streaming service.

The reason why behavior doesn’t match belief? Because these aren’t only beliefs about the world, but also signals of solidarity with others.

Every time a conspiracy theory is uttered, every time a simplistic slogan like “defund the police” is declared on social media without any concern for how that would never actually work or promoting an idea of a group that does the same thing just under a different name, or people declare the evils of capitalism even as they commodify their lives on TikTok, the statements are not really meant as “here is how I see the world” but instead are asking the question: “Who is with me?”

This is where the question of functionality should always come up for us when confronted with any form of behavior, especially when it seems to make no sense. Functionality is essentially the question: what’s the purpose or goal of this? Or, what does the person hope to get out of this? Quite often, the answer to this is belonging.

As Dan Williams notes in his must-read article, “We Are Confused, Maladapted Apes Who Need Enlightenment:”

First, the modern world radicalises our reliance on social learning. When forming beliefs about topics relevant to modern politics, we almost always lack the ability to cross-check what we’re told against our experience, either because it is too distant in space and time or because the topics concern abstract phenomena (GDP, inflation, demographic trends, economic growth, etc.) that no one can directly experience.

Remember, we are biological, socially embedded creatures, and therefore at the mercy of instincts and evolved processes that, while flexible, still answer to that basic resource question: how can I get what I want with the least amount of effort?

Social shunning, or its modern equivalent “cancelling,” is powerful precisely because of the reality that our social-embeddedness is the structure through which resources are allocated. As the old saying goes, “words are cheap.” Yes, they are, and that’s why in a world increasingly centered on the politics of identity, words are an easy, cost-effective way to be in the “right” group.

So the next time you find yourself getting upset about what a person says, and increasingly flabbergasted at how “anybody can believe x nonsense?”, remember the evolved organism that you are and the one in front of you. We’re not at war with our emotions; we’re active participants in an environment we co-developed to meet the needs of evolutionary biology.

Words do matter. Ideas are still important. But what we are as a species never goes away.

In this conversation, I talk with Roland Scheppske and discuss the evolving landscape of therapy, particularly in the context of LGBTQIA+ mental health. We explore the impact of telehealth, the importance of community and connection, and the role of authenticity in therapeutic relationships. Roland shares his unique approach to therapy, incorporating music and nostalgia as tools for healing, while also addressing the complexities of grief and the shifts in mental health practices post-pandemic. We emphasized the need for therapists to be present and engaged, and the importance of putting oneself first in the journey of mental health and well-being.

Chapters

00:00 Introduction and New Beginnings

02:56 Therapy in the Pandemic Era

09:52 Community and Connection in Therapy

16:10 The Complexity of LGBTQIA+ Community Dynamics

19:33 Journey to Becoming a Therapist

23:01 Integrating Creativity in Therapy

26:00 The Power of Neural Nostalgia in Therapy

34:13 Shifts in Therapy Practices Post-Pandemic

41:46 Understanding Grief in the Context of COVID-19

48:45 Prioritizing Self-Care in Mental Health

Roland Scheppske, LPC, LMHC, NCC, CCMHC is a queer-affirming psychotherapist and Clinical Director based in the Washington, D.C. area, licensed across multiple states. He specializes in LGBTQIA+ mental health, trauma-informed care, and helping people make meaning of their inner worlds through memory, music, and story. Roland is the co-host of a mental health podcast and the writer behind Queerly Therapeutic, where he explores therapy, identity, and healing in accessible, human ways. His work blends clinical depth with creativity, offering therapy—and conversations—that feel grounding, reflective, and real.

Links:

You Seem Fine Podcast | Podcast on Spotify

Queerly Therapeutic | Roland Scheppske | Substack

I’ve worked in medical settings as a case worker and with many clients over the years who have stepped up to help in caregiving for a loved one. There is always a juggling act in navigating the priorities and responsibilities associated with seemingly competing values. When does self-care give way to compassion and family, or vice versa? Is there really that much of a separation between them? I work with clients to recognize that the push/pull of values is less about which value is more important and more about how one is showing up in support of them. The limits being found are not in your level of caring, but in the resources available to implement desired behaviors.

To address some of these concerns, we have a guest post by Harry Cline, touching on strategies for practical self-care when caring for others.

New caregivers—people who have recently started providing regular help to a parent, partner, child, or friend—often discover that love and exhaustion can show up in the same hour. Self-care isn’t a luxury add-on; it’s the maintenance plan that keeps you steady enough to keep showing up.

At a Glance

● Aim for “good enough” caregiving, not perfect caregiving.

● Protect three basics daily: sleep, food, and a few minutes of movement.

● Use boundaries as tools, not apologies (time limits, task lists, “not today” scripts).

● Ask for help early—before burnout forces the issue.

● Pick three changes this week and treat them like appointments.

A tiny menu of reset moments

When time is tight, self-care has to be modular. Here are quick resets that don’t require a perfect day:

● Drink a full glass of water before you answer the next request.

● Step outside for two minutes and look at something far away (trees, clouds, a brick wall—anything not your phone).

● Do a “kitchen counter stretch” while the microwave runs.

● Send one text that starts with: “Can you cover ___ on Thursday?”

● Put on a song and let your shoulders drop on purpose.

Small doesn’t mean silly. It means doable.

The self-care pieces that matter most

Movement when you’re already stretched thin

Exercise doesn’t have to look like a workout class. If your days are packed with work and caregiving, sneak activity into the cracks: take the stairs instead of the elevator when you can, and use part of your lunch break for a short walk—even ten minutes counts. If walking outside isn’t possible, pace during phone calls, do gentle leg lifts while sitting, or take one loop around the building before you go back in. The goal isn’t athletic glory; it’s keeping your body from locking up under chronic stress.

A caregiver self-care checklist you can start today

Pick a pen. Make it real. Try this for the next 7 days:

● I scheduled one break like an appointment (15–60 minutes).

● I ate one nourishing meal daily (not just snacks).

● I moved my body at least 5 minutes (walk, stairs, stretches).

● I identified one task to delegate and asked a specific person.

● I set one boundary (time limit, “no,” or “I can’t do that today”).

● I wrote down three warning signs of burnout for me (e.g., snapping, headaches, numbness).

● I chose one soothing practice I’ll repeat (music, shower, journaling, meditation, breathing).

If you miss a day, don’t restart the whole plan. Just continue. Consistency beats intensity.

FAQ

How do I stop feeling guilty when I rest?
Remind yourself: rest is part of the care plan. You’re not “taking time away” from caregiving—you’re preventing mistakes, injuries, and emotional blowups that make caregiving harder.

What if my family says I’m not doing enough?
Ask them to choose from a short list of concrete tasks they can take on. If they won’t help, their opinion doesn’t get a vote on your limits.

I don’t have time for therapy—what’s one alternative?
Start with a caregiver support group, brief telehealth options, or a standing weekly check-in with a trusted friend. The key is regular emotional unloading with someone safe.

How do I ask for help without starting drama?
Use specifics and a deadline: “Can you stay with Mom Tuesday from 3–5 so I can run errands?” Specific requests are easier to accept than “I need help.”

One reliable place to get caregiver support ideas

It’s tough to care for yourself when you’re running on empty. For practical, plain-language guidance on protecting your own health while caring for someone else, the CDC’s caregiver self-care page is a solid resource when it comes to navigating that often difficult balancing act between caring for others and remembering to care for yourself.

Conclusion

Caregiving can be meaningful—and still be too much when you try to do it alone, perfectly, all the time. Build self-care out of small parts: a boundary, a meal, a short walk, a real break on the calendar. Choose three changes you can sustain this week and treat them as non-negotiable. Your well-being isn’t separate from caregiving; it’s what makes caregiving possible.

SC Nealy, LPC (they/she) is a therapist and owner of an all queer and trans-identifying therapy practice in Washington, DC that focuses on bringing therapists with lived experiences to the LGBT+ population. They specialize in religious trauma work and their first non-fiction book, Healing Sacred Wounds, will be published by Bloomsbury in Fall 2026. Visit lgbtcounselingdmv.com for more information, or follow SC Nealy online at @scnealy on Instagram and @booksbysarahrobinson on Facebook.

www.lgbtcounselingdmv.com

www.instagram.com/scnealy

www.facebook.com/booksbysarahrobinson

Takeaways

Beliefs and oppressive systems can cause trauma.

Spirituality can exist without harming others.

Resources for deconstruction are often limited.

Not everyone is ready to deconstruct their beliefs.

Healthy engagement in religious communities is possible.

Creating spaces for those who choose to stay is important.

Support for mental health within religious contexts is needed.

Deconstructing is not the only path to healing.

Community health can be prioritized in spiritual practices.